Hey all, please don't even think of replying here with suggestions for actual IPTV providers, just DM me if you're willing to make a suggestion. Otherwise, let me know if the below situation is normal.

Long story short, I'm new to IPTV and looking for one that does US sports. I just got semi-scammed (at least, misrepresented) by a provider I found on one of the forums.

I spent most of my trial period struggling to get a VPN to work (and thought I did). Then I paid for six months, which was dumb as shit.

I picked up PIA to replace Mullvad, since that one has an Apple TV client and I'm Mac/iOS/tvOS. That broke IPTV on all devices. And why? Because these guys block VPNs due to "other IPTV provider want to steal our streams from their servers" broken English BS excuse that I can't even make sense of. What does one thing have to do with the other?

They want me to use their VPN, which is based on either Outline or Surfboard (the second doesn't even have a website). On Mac, that would mean using Tunnelblick to run their custom config file. The best part is:

In the chat, I asked what I should do on Apple TV. That's when they ghosted, since they have my money now. And then came back to say "Oh, actually we DO allow VPNs, it's your ISP that's blocking them."

So how come I can go anywhere and do anything on PIA, except use IPTV?

I'd love to know if that situation is abnormal. Am I right that streaming a bunch of IPTV using some rando's config file (or in the clear) is batshit? This is all on the high seas so I gotta use a VPN, right? Am I just misunderstanding the technical issue due to the language barrier?

Experienced IPTV sailor perspectives welcome 🏴‍☠️